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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28801872">dragon riders? in berk? it's more likely than you think</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissmycatsface/pseuds/imissmycatsface'>imissmycatsface</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>In The Night [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Astrid Doesn't Sharpen Her Axe, F/M, but so far the plot's caught my fancy, probably won't finish this hehe..he, time skip!!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-01-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-13 09:40:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,441</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28801872</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/imissmycatsface/pseuds/imissmycatsface</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Three years after the mysterious disappearance of the chief's son, Astrid catches a familiar figure trying to sneak into the village. Three guesses as to who... and why.</p><p>Hiccup brings with him a dragon (or six), half a missing leg, and a crazy idea on how to stop the raids. Astrid almost hates him for coming back at all, and hates herself even more for going along with his ridiculous plans so willingly.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III &amp; Astrid Hofferson, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III &amp; Toothless, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>In The Night [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1857661</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>62</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>dragon riders? in berk? it's more likely than you think</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>hehehe.. yeah, I don't know how far this one's gonna go. but until i run out of inspiration completely, I'll work at it! i really like thinking about what could happen differently in this au. as usual, i don't know how to drag a plot out, so the story might seemed rushed.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Astrid walked along the village borders, doing her scheduled nightly round. Her axe, strapped to her hip, swayed with every step.</p><p>The night sky was clear, the stars were bright. The world was silent, until it wasn’t.</p><p>A shadow moving in the woods near the village caught her eye. She focused on breathing normally and kept walking for a bit, acting as though she hadn’t seen, though her hand hovered next to her axe. </p><p>The shadow moved a bit closer to the edge of the forest, and to the village. </p><p>Astrid turned and began making her return walk, slowing her steps down microscopically so she could assess the potential danger the shadow posed to the village. If it was just an animal, raising the alarm would do nothing to endear her to the rest of the people on shift tonight.</p><p>The figure moved past the border of the forest, and. Nope. That was definitely a human form, creeping closer and closer to the healer's hut. Astrid let her hand unlatch the strap that kept her axe in place, and slowly filled her lungs to raise the alarm.</p><p>A second, definitely <em> dragon-shaped </em>shadow darted out of the forest and caught the first shadow as it keeled over.</p><p>....<em> What </em>?</p><p>...<em> Oh </em>.</p><p>No way... Astrid stopped her patrolling, incredulous, and narrowed her eyes at the shadows.</p><p>
  <em> Could it be..? </em>
</p><p>The dragon shadow looked in her direction, and she held her breath. Painfully conscious of what she was doing and the cognitive dissonance it was inducing in her, she strapped her axe back in and slowly lifted her hand away from it.</p><p>The dragon shadow started carrying the other shape towards her, and Astrid breathed out, incredulous. She started walking towards it, flicking her eyes between the dragon and the limp human it was carrying.</p><p><em> Did something happen to him? </em> Astrid frowned at the thought, and began walking towards the pair quicker. </p><p>She wasn’t sure why, but somehow, she felt... <em> responsible </em>for any injuries he might have gotten in the last few years since she’d seen him.</p><p>The two parties met each other in the middle, and with the light of her torch she could see both dragon and human better.</p><p>Three years ago, when she’d first followed Hiccup to his hiding place, she hadn’t gotten a good look at the dragon. Likewise, the night after, it had been too dark to study it further. But from what she could tell, from the colour of its scales to the shape of its wings, this was indeed the same dragon Hiccup had been talking to both those times.</p><p>And the human... she moved her gaze to the human, and her eyes widened suddenly.</p><p>The human was wearing what looked like a sort of armour, the same colour as the dragon. It looked as though a bunch of pebbles had been pressed into black leather hard enough to stick to it. <em> Weird. </em></p><p>There was a helmet that covered the person's entire head, and only a few wisps of hair stuck out from under it. There were slits in the front of the helmet for the person to see through.</p><p>As she stared at the pair, the human lifted a shaking hand to their helmet (his helmet; she knew who this was) and lifted it up to reveal gleaming green eyes looking back at her.</p><p>“Hiccup,” sighed Astrid. She let out the breath she had been holding for... who knew how long.</p><p>Hiccup smiled up at her from where he was leaning on his dragon, a mix of sheepish and cheeky. “Astrid! Hi. Haven’t seen each other in a while, right? Figured it was time to..check in!” By the end of his sentence his words had become forced.</p><p>His dragon shifted under him, and Hiccup flinched, clearly in pain. Astrid’s gaze immediately snapped to Hiccup’s face, attention sharpening. </p><p>“Hiccup, what’s wrong? Why are you here?” She asked him, keeping her tone low and quick. </p><p>As she waited for him to answer, she looked around to make sure she was the only person around. She was, and her attention returned to Hiccup, who was now... engaged in some weird hand vs. ear-thing slapping competition with his dragon. She pressed her lips together thinly.</p><p>When they noticed she was looking at them again, they stood up to attention. Or, rather, Hiccup tried to stand to attention but was clearly in too much pain to keep it up. The dragon took the opportunity to slap him with its ear... thing... again.</p><p>Astrid and Hiccup stared at each other for a few seconds.</p><p>Astrid raised an eyebrow.</p><p>“It’s a long story?” Hiccup attempted. When her express didn’t change, he slumped more onto his dragon and said, “Can I tell it when we’re not in the open? It’s sort of important, and I need to talk to you anyways about other stuff.”</p><p>The dragon nodded from under him, which Astrid firmly ignored in favour of staring hard at Hiccup.</p><p><em> Should she </em>?</p><p>Dear Thor, she was actually considering it...</p><p>“...Fine!” She exclaimed quietly, pinching the bridge of her nose with her free hand. This was already giving her the beginnings of a headache. “You still remember the layout of the village?”</p><p>Hiccup nodded seriously.</p><p>“Okay, good. There’s a new house at the end of the cliff overlooking the right half of the port. That’s mine. If you go there and wait inside, I’ll come when my shift is done in about an hour. Anyone that might want to talk to me knows better than to do it on days I had night shift, so nobody will bother us the entire day unless I leave the house, which,” here she opened her eyes to look at Hiccup, “for obvious reasons, I won’t be doing today. That good enough for you and your dragon pal?”</p><p>Hiccup nodded again.</p><p>She removed her fingers to glare at him. “While you wait, <em> don’t </em>touch anything in my house except the floor... and maybe a chair. I will know, and then you’ll be kicked out, regardless of however important what you might want to say is.”</p><p>Hiccup stared at her. For a second, she was gratified to see anxiety in his eyes. Then he seemed to steel himself and nodded one more time.</p><p>“You don’t need to worry,” he said calmly. “What I need to say matters more than anything in your house I would be interested in.”</p><p>“Then go.” Without another word, she watched Hiccup get on his dragon properly, and shooed them away towards the cliff.</p><p>Mind heavy with unanswered questions, she restarted her patrol route.</p><p>————————————————————</p><p>Astrid’s house was very tidy, Hiccup noted dazedly. He collapsed onto the floor next to the fireplace, took off his helmet, and let out a deep, shaky breath.</p><p>Toothless warbled next to him, concerned, but Hiccup waved him away. “I’m fine, Toothless, don’t worry. I think it started bleeding again, that’s all.”</p><p>He reached down to his left leg and unlocked the clasp keeping his hastily-made prosthetic in place. Heart pounding, he leaned in to inspect the damage.</p><p>Yep, the fairly recent wound had been rubbed raw by his prosthetic, and was bleeding sluggishly in patches.</p><p>“Meinfretr,” Hiccup whispered anxiously. “You think Astrid would have bandages I could use?” he asked Toothless. “I really don’t want it to get infected.”</p><p>Toothless shrugged. [<em> either way, she said not to touch anything </em>.]</p><p>Hiccup sighed, remembering how serious she’d looked when she said that. “Yeah, I know. I guess we’ll just ask her when she gets here, huh?”</p><p>Toothless nodded and moved to lie down behind Hiccup. Hiccup leant back against Toothless and closed his eyes.</p><p>They’d been flying for almost two days straight to get here. Hiccup hoped with all his heart it wasn’t for nothing.</p><p>A wave of pain-induced exhaustion rolled over him, and he sagged. </p><p>Poor Toothless hadn’t even had any fish today. Maybe Astrid would help them both out with what they needed..? She did let them go all those years ago. </p><p>He made a note to himself to thank her for it later, and fell asleep.</p><p>______________________________________________</p><p>Astrid wasn’t sure what to do with the scene that greeted her when she opened the door to her house.</p><p>Hiccup had fallen asleep waiting for her, and was leaning against his dragon, who was curled around him.</p><p>When she came closer, the dragon opened one of its eyes lazily, peering out at her. It watched her take off her jacket, and opened its other eye when she began to hang up her axe on the wall.</p><p>It rumbled softly and nudged Hiccup with its nose. Hiccup slapped at it weakly, pushing it away. Astrid tensed slightly, but the dragon just nosed at him again and sneezed.</p><p>“..She is?” asked Hiccup, speech slurred from sleep. He opened one eye to look around (in almost exactly the same way his dragon had) and spotted her almost immediately. Slowly he opened his other eye and straightened up off his dragon.</p><p><em> (“Sometimes it’s easier to understand him than anyone else in the village.” </em>)</p><p>“Hi, Astrid,” he said, starting to stretch. Halfway through, he flinched in pain and hunched over a bit.</p><p>Astrid narrowed her eyes slightly. “Hi,” she said shortly. “Do you think you can get through what you wanted to say without dying on me?”</p><p>Hiccup’s laughter was strained, but his smile was genuine. “I think I’ll be able to manage. Though can I, uh, have some bandages first? Less chance of dying if I can’t bleed out.”</p><p>“I- sure, I guess.” Astrid went over to her chest to grab a roll. As she walked towards him (and the Night Fury) she asked, “What do you need them for, exactly?”</p><p>Hiccup stopped smiling and looked away. </p><p>“For- for this.” He gestured down his body.</p><p>Astrid didn’t notice anything off until she spotted the peg leg resting next to the dragon’s tail. Slowly she moved her eyes to look at Hiccup’s legs.</p><p>“..Huh,” she said slowly, trying very hard not to be weird over the fact that Hiccup, out of everyone their age, was the first one to get a serious injury. She started walking again, and handed him the bandages. “Can I ask how it happened?”</p><p>“The how of it is.. one of the things I wanted to talk to you about, actually.” Hiccup ran a hand through his hair, then got to work bandaging his stump.</p><p>Astrid waited in silence as he finished tending to his injury.</p><p>When he was done, he turned to look at Astrid.</p><p>Very seriously, he told her, “I know how to stop the dragon raids, but I need help with it.”</p><p>Astrid stared.</p><p>______________________________________________</p><p>Hiccup fidgeted under Astrid’s incredulous gaze.</p><p>After a minute of nothing in response, he started to talk. “I guess that wasn’t what you were expecting, but-“</p><p>“No fucking shit, Hiccup!” Astrid cut him off. She closed her eyes shut and held out her hands to stop him from talking. “No - stop, what? You can’t just <em> drop </em> something like that and then move on!” She got up from where she had been sitting and paced around. Eventually she whirled back around, pointing at Hiccup. “You- you know how to stop the dragon raids? How? When did you find it out? Are you sure?” Her eyes were wide. Against his will, he thought, <em> cute </em>.</p><p>“Yes, I do. Toothless had told me something of what life was like in the nest-“</p><p>Again he was interrupted. “You know where the nest is?” gasped Astrid. She sat back down, noticeably closer to Hiccup, her eyes intent on him. He almost felt uncomfortable with her scrutiny, but he continued.</p><p>“Yeah. Toothless had told me about it, and I wanted to check it out for myself. Toothless warned me against it, obviously, but he goes where I go, and I really thought-” He trailed off, frustrated at his past self. “I don’t know why I thought it’d be easy, facing a dragon that big, but I did and...”</p><p>(<em> Something roaring. </em></p><p>
  <em> Toothless..? </em>
</p><p>
  <em> An avalanche of fire- </em>
</p><p><em> PaIN- </em>)</p><p>“I don’t remember the flight away from her, but I have to give all the credit of still being alive to Toothless.” Toothless purred, and Hiccup scratched behind his ear absentmindedly.</p><p>Silence.</p><p>“How big is the.. dragon you fought?” Astrid asked.</p><p>“Bigger than the entire great hall.”</p><p>Astrid’s eyes grew enormously, but she didn’t say anything.</p><p>“That dragon is the queen,” Hiccup continued. “She controls them. In exchange for food, she lets them stay alive. If they don’t bring enough food, they get eaten. It’s not a pretty system for the dragons or the Vikings they’re forced to take the food from.</p><p>“So, here’s why I came back.” Hiccup looked Astrid in the eye. “ You helped me out three years ago, with no real benefit to you. I need your help again, with the queen. I need your help to kill it, so that the dragons are free. At the same time, the Vikings lose their dragon problem. It’s a win-win, it’s really dangerous, and we’d have a good chance of dying. But you’re the only person I know can come to about this.”</p><p>Astrid stayed silent. She looked down at her hands, inspecting them.</p><p>Hiccup stayed quiet for as long as he could. </p><p>After a while, Toothless nudged him with his snout. [<em> why aren’t either of you talking? Shouldn’t you say something again? </em>]</p><p>He shook his head wordlessly in reply, and Toothless lay his head back down.</p><p>It must have been ten minutes before Astrid spoke.</p><p>“Do you have a plan for what we’d do?” she asked quietly.</p><p>Hiccup held back his sigh of relief and scratched his head. “Not… a <em> plan </em>, persé. More of an idea.”</p><p>“...Well?” she prompted after a while. “Are you going to elaborate?”</p><p>“Ok. But it’s a pretty vague idea, too,” he warned her. Then he took a breath.</p><p>____________________________________________________________________________</p><p>“We - Toothless and I - we can’t defeat her on our own, as you can see.” Hiccup motioned to his leg. The dragon curled up tighter around him, and Hiccup patted its tail absently.</p><p>“We need help with it. But, obviously, if I came into the village, there’d be all sorts of problems. Nobody knows what happened, right?” He looked up as he asked Astrid, sudden nervousness in his eyes. </p><p>She quickly shook her head to reassure him, and relieved, he looked back down at his hands.</p><p>“So they all just think I disappeared. If I just showed up, with or without Toothless, there’d be questions. Which is why I came to you. </p><p>“I know that you were one of the best in our class at battle tactics and strategies, and you’re probably one of the more highly respected warriors, judging by the dragon training we did. And! You have your own house, so I must be partly right, at least.” Hiccup fidgeted and glanced up at Astrid. She wasn’t sure what face she was making at his compliments, but he quickly looked back down and continued.</p><p>“I don’t know what influence you have over people, but it’s definitely more than me. I need to know who in the village would agree to fight alongside dragons. I also need access to the forge, which means at some point I need to talk to Gobber.”</p><p>Astrid spoke, her brows furrowed. “Why do you need access to the forge?”</p><p>“..Ah,” Hiccup said intelligently. “I- That, that there brings me to the rest of the idea. Which will probably sound ridiculous, but. It’s actually pretty well thought out. So.”</p><p>“I need to know,” he said, hesitantly, “if you or anyone else would be willing to ride a dragon.”</p><p>Astrid blinked. </p><p>“You’re right, that does sound a bit ridiculous, coming to a dragon-hating village for that,” she said calmly. That calm probably came from the sheer disbelief she felt.</p><p>Like. Was he actually <em> serious </em> about that? Did he actually believe he would be able to find people in Berk willing to ride dragons? Her brain felt like static at the thought.</p><p>Well. She reconsidered. He probably was serious, yes. After all, he was also from Berk, wasn’t he?</p><p>“...Would we be on a time limit of any sort?” she questioned. When he shook his head, she retreated back into her head.</p><p>He needed people willing to fight alongside him and Toothless. He wanted people who were willing to not only fight alongside dragons, but also <em> on </em> them. She put a finger in her mouth in thought.</p><p>Obviously, if he was looking for that here on Berk, he was doing it because he thought it was either a good shot, or the best shot. And, she supposed, Berkians probably <em> would </em> have the most motivation to help him kill this ‘Queen’ he had talked about. The raids had always hit Berk the hardest, after all, and it was getting to the point where some people were beginning to really struggle to get by. Any true Berkian would jump at the chance to stop the raids and help their people. </p><p>The problem was the deep-rooted bias everyone on Berk was instilled with against dragons. She had no doubt that if the wrong people got ahold of where the Nest was, the village would ignore any directions from Hiccup. And from what little Hiccup had told her about the Queen… any attack limited to the ground would end in a complete slaughter. Nobody would leave the Nest alive.</p><p>The worst part of that was? Almost anyone in the village counted as ‘the wrong people’. Few people had listened to Hiccup before he’d cheated in the Dragon Ring. Now? After having gone missing for years? If anyone put together what had really happened that night, there was a huge chance of Hiccup getting hurt, and herself for letting him go.</p><p>She refocused on his… idea. If Hiccup could face the Queen, <em> alone </em> , and still get away mostly intact, then the chances of defeating the Queen would improve <em> drastically </em> from having more people on dragons. Astrid knew, as all Berkians did, that dragons gained a <em> huge </em> advantage during raids from being able to fly. It was why so many of their tactics against them focused on getting them out of the air. When fighting a dragon… larger than the <em> Great Hall </em> - oh, <em> Thor </em>, just the thought of such a dragon made her shiver. Hiccup looked over at the movement, but she ignored him.</p><p>Even without knowing the strengths and weaknesses of the Queen, Astrid knew that being able to fight in the air would even out the playing field incredibly. Hiccup was right when he said it was well-reasoned.</p><p><em> ..Odin </em>. However unlikely it was to succeed, Hiccup had come up with a way to end the raids. The thought made her dizzy. A life without worrying about waking in the middle of the night to your house on fire around you… She couldn’t imagine.</p><p>“It seems feasible,” she said aloud, disturbing the quiet they’d fallen into. Hiccup twitched at her voice, and looked up at her again.</p><p>“It does?” he asked.</p><p>“Not the part about getting people from Berk to ride dragons, no,” she said bluntly, glancing at him. “But defeating the Queen sounds a lot more feasible from up in the air than it does stuck on the ground. Can she even fly?” she asked Hiccup suddenly. “We’ve never seen a dragon that big before. Maybe it’s too heavy..” but Hiccup was already shaking his head. He was staring into the distance.</p><p>“It can definitely fly,” he said blankly. “And breathe fire, too.”  The dragon lifted its head up and stared at Hiccup. After a second, it made a sound at him, and Hiccup snapped his head over.</p><p>Astrid stared at Hiccup, ignoring whatever he was saying to the dragon. That just there, had that been..?</p><p>No. It didn’t matter. Astrid was tired of thinking about impossible things, and also just tired in general. She stood up suddenly, causing both Hiccup and the dragon to look at her. She rubbed at her eyes.</p><p>“You can stay here for now,” she told him, sighing. “We’ll figure out where you’ll stay after tonight after I’ve woken up. Don’t leave until then. I need to get more answers about things before I make up my mind about whether I’ll help you or not, and I’m getting those answers in the morning.”</p><p>Hiccup nodded up at her, face illuminated by the fire. In its light, she could see the bags under his eyes.</p><p>“Thank you,” he told her sincerely. “For letting us stay here, and for listening.”</p><p>She glared at him, oddly off-balanced by his words. </p><p>“Whatever,” she said, and went off to bed.</p>
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